The German „Energy Transition” has failed and its interventions in the economy and nature will burden the country for generations to come: disposal of obsolete wind and solar plants, restoration of the landscape and development of a reliable electricity supply. How could it be that this costly mistake has remained unchallenged to this day?

Guest post by Dr. Hans Hofmann-Reinecke, Cape Town

Energy Transition and Logic
The German energy transition, initiated in 2000 by the EEG (Renewable Energy Sources Act), is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. This is a good time to look at the intention, logic and results of this gigantic national project.

Scientific justification:

  1. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased significantly in recent decades due to human activities.
  2. CO2 is a greenhouse gas that warms the atmosphere.
  3. The impact of this warming on the climate and its consequences for life on earth are unforeseeable.
  4. Everything must be done to reduce CO2 emissions caused by humanity to zero.
  5. Germany is making its contribution by switching all consumers to CO2-free (“renewable”) energy sources.

How credible are these claims?

  1. Measurements show without a doubt that the CO2 concentration has increased by about a third in the past 6 decades. Is this increase man-made? A mathematical comparison of the amount of fossil fuels consumed with the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere makes this seem plausible. On the other hand, the measured increase did not stall during the “Corona years”, although traffic and industrial production were significantly reduced worldwide during this time. This should have been reflected in the CO2 budget.
  2. CO2 certainly has an influence on the temperature of the atmosphere, but how much? 97% of “scientists” are convinced that there will be dramatic warming, but on the other hand, 97% of the predictions of their “computer models” turn out to be wrong. The influence of the sun is much stronger than CO2, and even without CO2 variations, there have been dramatic changes in the climate in the history of the earth.
  3. Floods, droughts and other natural disasters have always existed, but today they are explained by global warming. However, it has been proven that hurricanes have become less frequent in the USA in recent decades.
  4. Even if global temperatures were to rise by 1 or 2 hundredths of a degree per year, this would not pose any threat to humans or nature.
  5. Germany’s contribution to the global CO2 budget is 1.8%. Given the gigantic, unchecked growth in emissions in China and India, Germany’s efforts to reduce CO2 are irrelevant.

Not even symbolically
In summary, even if claims 1 to 4 were 100% correct – which is by no means the case – Germany’s efforts to avoid CO2 emissions are ineffective; they are symbolic at best. A comparison of costs and benefits, i.e. the comparison of the price of the existential damage to Germany’s economy caused by the energy transition with a result that is symbolic at best, reveals a grotesque disproportion.

No country has burdened its citizens as much as Germany in the name of the energy transition. The “Statista” graph (above) shows the amount of CO2 emitted per kWh of electrical energy generated for various European countries (annual average 2023). The “European villain champion” is Poland with 662 grams, while Germany with 381 grams ranks a respectable 6th out of 26 nations. The bottom of the list are Finland and France, the latter with a full 56 grams. In Germany, seven times the amount of CO2 is emitted per kilowatt hour compared to its French neighbor.

One could only conclude that the energy transition never had the true goal of reducing CO2 emissions in Germany. This suspicion is also supported by the shutdown of nuclear power plants, the only major CO2-free energy source in the country. Could it be that, behind the scenes, under the name of energy transition, a completely different game is going on than what we are told? But what could that be?

Follow the Money!

If you compare the snail’s pace at which infrastructure projects are being tackled in Germany with the speed at which wind turbines are springing up, you observe a clear difference. The energy and intelligence with which “renewables” are being driven forward is sorely missed when repairing motorway bridges or railway tracks. In 2017 alone, over 3,000 wind turbines were installed, almost 10 per day. And for each wind turbine, a heavy-duty access road must first be built, sometimes through mountainous and forested terrain. All of this happens quickly without any bureaucratic or technical hurdles. Neither species protection nor the Federal Forest Act stand in the way; they disappear into thin air as if by magic.

Perhaps this magic hand will wave a few banknotes; can that be completely ruled out? According to estimates by the “Welt” newspaper, 520 billion euros will have been invested in the energy transition by the end of 2025, which is around €12,000 per German taxpayer. Price Waterhouse Coopers estimates that the costs will be 13,200 billion euros by the time the energy transition is completed in 2045. But the money is not lost, it is just in someone else’s hands now. Who could that be?

In any case, there are very close relations between the “Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection” and the actors, contractors and other potential beneficiaries of the energy transition. It was even claimed that these relations were too close, there was talk of nepotism, which led to the “best man affair” and the resignation of the then State Secretary Dr. Patrick Graichen.

globalization
But now there is an urgent question like an elephant in the room: What will become of this wonderfully well-established climate industry which works like a perfect clockwork if one day there is no longer any room for wind turbines and photovoltaics in Germany?

So now a plan has been put in place: energy transition in South Africa! There is plenty of space there, and the electricity today comes from nasty hard coal. The Africans may have a lot of coal, but do they have the money needed for an energy transition? Do they have the tens of billions that such a project would cost? Of course, not; but the German taxpayer is happy to step in. The ” Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPS)” were quickly conjured up, which provide financial support from Germany to the tune of 22 billion euros for the South African energy transition.

This raises the question of whether the government actually controls the energy transition or whether the tail is perhaps wagging the dog.

This article also appears on the author’s blog Think – Again . The bestseller Green and Stupid, and other of his books, are available at Amazon.